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yolcuitia.

Headword: 
yolcuitia.
Principal English Translation: 

to confess someone, hear his/her confession

James Lockhart, Nahuatl as Written: Lessons in Older Written Nahuatl, with Copious Examples and Texts (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Studies, 2001), 242.

IPAspelling: 
yoːlkwiːtiɑː
Alonso de Molina: 

yolcuitia. nino. (pret. oninoyolcuiti.) confessarse.
yolcuitia. nite. (pret. oniteyolcuiti.) confessar a otro.
Alonso de Molina, Vocabulario en lengua castellana y mexicana y mexicana y castellana, 1571, part 2, Nahuatl to Spanish, f. 39v. col. 2. Thanks to Joe Campbell for providing the transcription.

Frances Karttunen: 

YŌLCUĪTIĀ vrefl, vt to confess, make confession; to confess someone / confesarse (M), confesar a otro (M). See YŌL-, CUĪTIĀ.
Frances Karttunen, An Analytical Dictionary of Nahuatl (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1992), 341.

Lockhart’s Nahuatl as Written: 

(1) nic. Class 3: ōnicyōlcuītih. yōlli heart, cuītia to declare.
(2) nino. to confess one's sins.
James Lockhart, Nahuatl as Written: Lessons in Older Written Nahuatl, with Copious Examples and Texts (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Studies, 2001), 242.

Attestations from sources in English: 

yolcuitia yolmelahua = to confess (Juan Bautista, Mexico City, 1599?)
Susanne Klaus, Uprooted Christianity: The Preaching of the Christian Doctrine in Mexico, Based on Franciscan Sermons of the 16th Century Written in Nahuatl (Bonn: Bonner Amerikanistische Studien e. V. c/o Seminar für Völkerkunde, Universität Bonn, 1999), 140.

quimonochiliquiuh in oncan Tlatiloco çeme in teopixqe inic mohuicaz, quimoyolcuitilitiuh = he should come to Tlatelolco to summon one of the friars to go hear his confession (Mexico City, 1649)
James Lockhart, Nahuatl as Written: Lessons in Older Written Nahuatl, with Copious Examples and Texts (Stanford: Stanford University Press and UCLA Latin American Studies, 2001), 202.

muchi yn semana motemachtilique ynic mocha tlacatl moyolcuitisque mocencahuasque tlaselisque ynic tlanisque [sic] yn hui tlacnopilhuistli yn itoca Jubileo = They preched all wee that everyone should confess, should prepared themselves, and take communion, in order to gain the great blessing called plenary indulgence Here in This Year: Seventeenth-Century Nahuatl Annals of the Tlaxcala-Puebla Valley, ed. and transl. Camilla Townsend, with an essay by James Lockhart (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010), 120–121.

neyolcuitiliztica, necencahualiztica = through confessions and abstinence (early seventeenth century, Central Mexico)
Louise M. Burkhart, Before Guadalupe: The Virgin Mary in Early Colonial Nahuatl Literature, Institute for Mesoamerican Studies Monograph 13 (Albany: University at Albany, 2001), 66.

yhuã nechtequipachoa ynic amo moyolcuiti yn çan iuh omic = and it worries me that she did not confess; she just died like this (early seventeenth century, Central Mexico)
Louise M. Burkhart, Before Guadalupe: The Virgin Mary in Early Colonial Nahuatl Literature, Institute for Mesoamerican Studies Monograph 13 (Albany: University at Albany, 2001), 146.

neyolcuitia = to hear confession from people in general

otimoyolcuiti, otimoyolmelauh = we confessed (Juan Bautista, ca. 1599, Mexico City)
Susanne Klaus, Uprooted Christianity: The Preaching of the Christian Doctrine in Mexico, Based on Franciscan Sermons of the 16th Century Written in Nahuatl (Bonn: Bonner Amerikanistische Studien e. V. c/o Seminar für Völkerkunde, Universität Bonn, 1999), 247.

Attestations from sources in Spanish: 

Yancuican neyolcuitiloc ytech teopantli Asupcion çan oc xacalli = Por primera vez se confesó a la gente en el templo de la Asunción, que aún era un jacal. (Tlaxcala, 1662–1692)
Juan Buenaventura Zapata y Mendoza, Historia cronológica de la Noble Ciudad de Tlaxcala, transcripción paleográfica, traducción, presentación y notas por Luis Reyes García y Andrea Martínez Baracs (Tlaxcala and México: Universidad Autónoma de Tlaxcala, Secretaría de Extensión Universitaria y Difusión Cultural, y Centro de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores en Antropología Social, 1995), 102–103.

ompa Palacio mochi in ze semana omotemachtiliquê inic mochi Tlacatl moyolcuitizquê yhuan tlacelizquê ic quitlanizque in huey tlacnopilhuiliztli itoca Jubileo = allá en Palacio en toda la semana predicaron excitando a todos para que se confesaran y comulgasen, para ganar las grandes gracias que llaman Jubileo (Puebla, 1797)
Anales del Barrio de San Juan del Río; Crónica indígena de la ciudad de Puebla, xiglo XVII, eds. Lidia E. Gómez García, Celia Salazar Exaire, y María Elena Stefanón López (Puebla: Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades, BUAP, 2000), 100.

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